"Several hundred years ago, humans were nearly exterminated by titans. Titans are typically several stories tall, seem to have no intelligence, devour human beings and, worst of all, seem to do it for the pleasure rather than as a food source. A small percentage of humanity survived by walling themselves in a city protected by extremely high walls, even taller than the biggest of titans.

Flash forward to the present and the city has not seen a titan in over 100 years. Teenage boy Eren and his foster sister Mikasa witness something horrific as the city walls are destroyed by a colossal titan that appears out of thin air. As the smaller titans flood the city, the two kids watch in horror as their mother is eaten alive. Eren vows that he will murder every single titan and take revenge for all of mankind."

Do you like Mikasa? Do you want so see a female lead that kicks ass and defends the weak?

Say hello to Mikasa the Episode!

Armin is utterly in shock after Eren got eaten by a titan last time. Meanwhile, the evacuation is going slow - because a greedy merchant is hellbent on saving his valuable cargo before dozens of human lives. This is among my favorite scenes in the show so far: Mikasa one-hit-kills a titan right in front of the evacuees and then proceeds to make a threat to the merchant á la "get the cargo out of the way or I'll kill you and then we'll get the cargo out of the way". The cargo is removed from the doorway without any bloodshed and the civilians can evacuate (as much as I really would've wanted the man to get seriously hurt for the utter asshole-ism he presents us with). A little girl thanks Mikasa and our heroine gives her the fist-over-heart-salute.

Mikasa: Empowering Girls Since 2013

We then move on to a flashback that takes the rest of the episode: the faithful meeting of Mikasa and Eren when they were children. Mikasa's family was attacked by slave dealers who wanted Oriental women to sell off on the black market (yes, it is actually established that Mikasa is half-Oriental and pretty much the last one of her kind as far as we know - so we can probably assume the rest of the cast is Caucasian). After Mikasa's father is killed and her mother dies while trying to help her escape, Mikasa gets caught and beaten by the criminals. Finally, Eren arrives and kills two of the men (yes, little Eren is badass for his age, where'd that go when he grew up?!). When the two are ambushed, Mikasa ends up killing the third thug and at the end of the ordeal joining the Ackermann family, along with Eren giving Mikasa her signature scarf.

The on-going battle will continue next week, with Mikasa most likely finding out what happened to Eren. I just hope she doesn't go suicidal right away, but at least attempts to do what Eren couldn't.

I have to mention here that the subtitles I use seem to at least occasionally forget that the names in the show are German - so Sasha Braus turns into Sasha Blouse (similar pronounciation, totally different word and meaning). Not sure if it counts, but the OP has some German lyrics as well: "Sie sind das Essen und wir sind die Jaeger!" right at the beginning, if I'm not mistaken. No idea why German influence was picked for this series, though I actually really like it.

I was rather surprised, and somewhat disappointed, by the fact that this episode didn't confirm that Eren is alive or dead. Sure, we had Armin's scene at the beginning wherein the other recently-graduated cadets learn of Eren's demise, but nothing was really confirmed one way or another. I said it last time and I'll say it again: major props to majorly catching me off guard and surprising me if he has in fact killed the main character off so unexpectedly soon like this. It's a shame that more stories don't do this if only because it'd keep us on our toes more when authors do try to scare us by placing a main character in harm's way.

But the episode wasn't really a bust because it was a very helpful episode that shone a whole lot of light on Mikasa's backstory, pretty much answering all in one fell swoop:

why is she so quiet and serious?

why does she like Eren so much when she could have pretty much any man she wanted?

how did Mikasa and Eren meet?

how come, in Episode 01, it seemed like Mikasa was living with the Jaeger family (and thus it seemed she was their daughter), but then later on (both in that episode as well as in later episodes) it was established that she isn't their daughter, either by blood or by upbringing, and that that wasn't her home?

why haven't we met Mikasa's parents?

Like Kaisa, I too noticed that Eren was notably more badass in the past than he was when we met him in Episode 01. Unlike Kaisa, however, I couldn't help but to laugh and roll my eyes at that. It strikes me as bad writing! Writing 102, people: a good author doesn't deliver a flashback in which the characters exhibit properties or traits that they've earned over the forward-moving-thru-time progression of our tale; instead, a good author shows us characters who are as retarded in their development as they were when we first met them, maybe even more so. But that isn't what we saw here. We went from Episode 01 Eren, who the local children were reportedly not that afraid of (they were more afraid of Mikasa), to Episode 03 and 04 Eren, who learned how to fight and became something of a man, to Episode 06's Flashback Eren who was John fucking Rambo and managed to single-handedly murder two dangerous and grown men ... by knife! Unbelievable.

That stated, the scene was interesting to watch (if discomfiting given its subject matter ). And yeah, it was interesting how they made a big deal of Mikasa's ethnicity and confirmed that she's half-Oriental and that Oriental people are all but extinct in Eren's city-state. It was also interesting to hear other references to our planet too, to places like the Orient (as heard in Mikasa's flashback) or to the fact that the planet is mostly covered by saltwater (as heard in Armin's flashback), as these references seem to suggest that Shingeki no Kyojin isn't taking place in some fantasy realm but is instead taking place on Earth.

That was surprising to see that one Titan/giant/Eoten run so fast for the gate, given that he was one of the normal-sized ones and was (easily?) felled by Mikasa. Up until now we'd only ever seen the standard giants lumbering forth at a sloth's pace; it was only the 50-foot tall one who showed any sign of being able to sprint. So I'm not really sure what the deal is, but I guess we'll find out eventually.

Kaisa, Ackerman is Mikasa's original family name. The name of Eren's family is Jaeger. You say Mikasa went to live with the Ackermans but I think you mean to say she went to live with the Jaegers.

Closing comment: I'm still not 100% convinced that Eren is dead. It's not just the OP and the ED credits which have made him out to be the protagonist of this tale: even the amount of camera time given to Eren in Episodes 01 thru 05 was disproportionately high to any other character in the series, even Mikasa and Armin. He was easily, easily, easily the star of the show. So unless the author deserves my sincere applause for being bold -- something I'd very much love to give him! -- I'm going to have to cling to the belief that, despite losing an arm and a leg, Eren managed to survive the Titan/giant/Eoten munching on him, escaped, possibly killed it, and (as per your usual anime physiology) managed to make his way back to the inner wall without going into shock despite suffering the sort of life-ending blood loss typically associated with traumatic loss of two limbs. I'm optimistic we'll find out next week about Eren's fate, but the sneak peek doesn't fill me with too much confidence. We'll see though. We'll see.

I was rather surprised, and somewhat disappointed, by the fact that this episode didn't confirm that Eren is alive or dead. Sure, we had Armin's scene at the beginning wherein the other recently-graduated cadets learn of Eren's demise, but nothing was really confirmed one way or another. I said it last time and I'll say it again: major props to majorly catching me off guard and surprising me if he has in fact killed the main character off so unexpectedly soon like this. It's a shame that more stories don't do this if only because it'd keep us on our toes more when authors do try to scare us by placing a main character in harm's way.

But the episode wasn't really a bust because it was a very helpful episode that shone a whole lot of light on Mikasa's backstory, pretty much answering all in one fell swoop:

why is she so quiet and serious?

why does she like Eren so much when she could have pretty much any man she wanted?

how did Mikasa and Eren meet?

how come, in Episode 01, it seemed like Mikasa was living with the Jaeger family (and thus it seemed she was their daughter), but then later on (both in that episode as well as in later episodes) it was established that she isn't their daughter, either by blood or by upbringing, and that that wasn't her home?

why haven't we met Mikasa's parents?

Like Kaisa, I too noticed that Eren was notably more badass in the past than he was when we met him in Episode 01. Unlike Kaisa, however, I couldn't help but to laugh and roll my eyes at that. It strikes me as bad writing! Writing 102, people: a good author doesn't deliver a flashback in which the characters exhibit properties or traits that they've earned over the forward-moving-thru-time progression of our tale; instead, a good author shows us characters who are as retarded in their development as they were when we first met them, maybe even more so. But that isn't what we saw here. We went from Episode 01 Eren, who the local children were reportedly not that afraid of (they were more afraid of Mikasa), to Episode 03 and 04 Eren, who learned how to fight and became something of a man, to Episode 06's Flashback Eren who was John fucking Rambo and managed to single-handedly murder two dangerous and grown men ... by knife! Unbelievable.

That stated, the scene was interesting to watch (if discomfiting given its subject matter ). And yeah, it was interesting how they made a big deal of Mikasa's ethnicity and confirmed that she's half-Oriental and that Oriental people are all but extinct in Eren's city-state. It was also interesting to hear other references to our planet too, to places like the Orient (as heard in Mikasa's flashback) or to the fact that the planet is mostly covered by saltwater (as heard in Armin's flashback), as these references seem to suggest that Shingeki no Kyojin isn't taking place in some fantasy realm but is instead taking place on Earth.

That was surprising to see that one Titan/giant/Eoten run so fast for the gate, given that he was one of the normal-sized ones and was (easily?) felled by Mikasa. Up until now we'd only ever seen the standard giants lumbering forth at a sloth's pace; it was only the 50-foot tall one who showed any sign of being able to sprint. So I'm not really sure what the deal is, but I guess we'll find out eventually.

Kaisa, Ackerman is Mikasa's original family name. The name of Eren's family is Jaeger. You say Mikasa went to live with the Ackermans but I think you mean to say she went to live with the Jaegers.

Closing comment: I'm still not 100% convinced that Eren is dead. It's not just the OP and the ED credits which have made him out to be the protagonist of this tale: even the amount of camera time given to Eren in Episodes 01 thru 05 was disproportionately high to any other character in the series, even Mikasa and Armin. He was easily, easily, easily the star of the show. So unless the author deserves my sincere applause for being bold -- something I'd very much love to give him! -- I'm going to have to cling to the belief that, despite losing an arm and a leg, Eren managed to survive the Titan/giant/Eoten munching on him, escaped, possibly killed it, and (as per your usual anime physiology) managed to make his way back to the inner wall without going into shock despite suffering the sort of life-ending blood loss typically associated with traumatic loss of two limbs. I'm optimistic we'll find out next week about Eren's fate, but the sneak peek doesn't fill me with too much confidence. We'll see though. We'll see.

I had the episode playing in the background (round 2) while I was writing that post, and when Mikasa was called Ackerman my brain apparently got set on that. ^^; But yes, Eren Jaeger/Jäger and Mikasa Ackerman.

As for running Titans: we had one in Episode 1! The one that broke the inner wall (Wall Maria?), the Armored Titan I think it was referred to as.

That was surprising to see that one Titan/giant/Eoten run so fast for the gate, given that he was one of the normal-sized ones and was (easily?) felled by Mikasa. Up until now we'd only ever seen the standard giants lumbering forth at a sloth's pace;it was only the 50-foot tall one who showed any sign of being able to sprint. So I'm not really sure what the deal is, but I guess we'll find out eventually.

I know the wall-breaker runs. I even said so. ^^;

But apparently you've forgotten that that was the climax to Episode 02, not 01. :p We didn't see any running in Episode 01. The 50-foot tall guy's feat in Episode 1 was crawling over the outermost wall and facilitating the entry of the other giants. Episode 02 sees him dashing for the next wall in like a track star sprinting towards the finish line and knocking a great big hole in the wall as he crashes into and through it.

The first episode kind of pissed me off. I don't like Eren, I hope he gets eaten, loud mouth whiner who isn't making babies with his live-in girlfriend Mikasa. I presume she's his bride to be because they have different names and he never refers to "our parents", simply "my parents".

Recon Corps guy hands her son's arm to the mother. This is stupid and not like what real military would do.

Looks like the huge red titan was thrown into the wall, then withdrew. Perhaps hitting the wall was unintentional on his part? Assuming there are similar titans of that size, why wouldn't one attack the city sooner?

Hannes recognized the titan that ate Eren's mother and ran away. Assuming he's not bluffing and that he could kill titans, there's a personal reason for withdrawing or he felt himself outmatched. I don't think it's the latter, and if it was the former, he's obviously not quaking in his boots like the others.

It's suggested by the 2,000 years line that this takes place in the far future (in Japan, no less), meaning humanity has regressed technologically to European medieval times. It would have to be such if the doctor could cure pneumonic plague (something that only modern medicine can handle) but their best weapons are cannons and swords.

Since I know there are MLA connections, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the walls were constructed as a last-ditch effort by a more advanced civilization to protect humanity. Why humans couldn't kill off the titans early on...perhaps they couldn't work together against the common foe? Perhaps the titans took the world by surprise, or they were the results of mad science on human subjects? I'm curious how beasties of that size can survive outside if they rely on human meat for sustenance.

It looks like there's roughly two classes of titan, the lumbering, brainless naked behemoths and stronger, taller ones that are more dangerous/smarter. We've seen at least two, I think. The one from Episode 1 who broke the wall, and the football player one in episode two who jumped into the second wall. This one was definitely deliberate and though we didn't see this guy eat humans, it's clear he was hostile to the humans.

250,000 dead and that only modestly improved the famine? What are these people eating? Soylent green, perhaps?

Eren needs to start banging Mikasa as a life insurance policy. If he dies, which seems likely (either him or Armin), his family has something to fall back on, namely family members!

The scene with Eren's father is weird. Was it a dream or did it happen? If it happened, did it happen before the titans invaded, or after and Eren killed his Dad? What was that syringe and what's in the basement? /strongly suspects the doctor was going to turn Eren into a titan.

Some new characters get introduced. Probably to make up for the ones that get eaten. =3=

Of course there's a character who's always eating. At first I thought she was unusually bold, but it turns out she's just dumb.

Now it seems like there are several different types of titans, since they suggested that the armored titan was different from the really tall one. I wonder if that will be the go-to plot device for this show. Hey, we developed a weapon that does X? Suddenly there's a new titan that's immune to X. Or maybe it'll become a monster-of-the-week deal. =3=

You guys bring up a good point that I'd somehow missed: Episode 01's 50-foot wall scaler and Episode 02's 50-foot wall tackler are two different giants. The first one is bald while the second one has gray hair. Not sure why I failed to compute that this difference in appearance suggests that they're two separate individuals.

Still, what I wrote to Kaisa last night stands. The guy we saw running in Episode 06 was, as Morg puts it, one of the "derpy" ones. That's what I found surprising. Not that a giant could and would run, but that a derpy giant could and would. All the ones we'd seen up until then had been slothful lumberers. This was the first time we saw a derpy one running.

Kind of anxious that you two are deciding to pull another Psycho-Pass and watch this series together. I don't think it did you or the series any favors last time, and I worry that that's going to be the case again. Then again, the only difference between what you did and what we all do here -- watch indivudually and then post -- is that we influence each other half an hour later at the level of the forum rather than instantaneously at the level of AIM. *shrug*

Kind of anxious that you two are deciding to pull another Psycho-Pass and watch this series together. I don't think it did you or the series any favors last time, and I worry that that's going to be the case again. Then again, the only difference between what you did and what we all do here -- watch indivudually and then post -- is that we influence each other half an hour later at the level of the forum rather than instantaneously at the level of AIM. *shrug*

The titans represent the Bush Administration.
The humans represent evidence of torture at Guantanamo Bay.

The titans eating the humans is symbolic of the Bush Administration hiding the evidence!

This is probably a bogus theory, but I thought i'd throw it out there anyway. Basically I have a feeling that the giants are processed, and made by a higher class of humans that essentially want to control/destroy mankind for SOME reason that we are yet to find out. What if the human traffickers we saw in episode 6 were trying to find people to hand over to the higher order, possibly to turn into Giants, or just to use as fuck-toys or slaves or whatever. And quite possibly Eren and Mikasa's badass moment of episode 6 may have angered the higher order and triggered them to attack the walls. Just a theory

Also the giants faces look like an amalgamation of lots of different giants faces, so using humans to create the giants seems really plausible, taking little bits of each persons facial features to create them. Maybe thats why Hannes froze at the sight of the giant; because he recognised a part of its face.

Just theories Either way I am 99% sure Eren will return. Maybe we'll see him at the place where giants are manufactured and he'll escape? I don't know. Or maybe we'll see him again as the main evil giant or something like that? I don't know.

Apparently the manga is ten volumes long and is ongoing while the anime is slated for 25 episodes. (I had thought it 13. Damn. ^^; Was hoping for closure sooner.) I don't know whether the manga is wrapping up soon and the anime plans to end the same way or whether the manga has no plans of stopping soon and the anime will either a) end in the middle or b) end with a made-for-TV ending. I'm hoping the manga's planning to wrap up soon and the anime will end the same way.

What does Eren's father do when he goes on his journeys? He says their house calls, but ...

What exactly are the giants?

Where do the giants come from? What are their origins?

Are there other human civilizations besides Eren's?

What are the origins of Eren's city-state? How old is it, and how did it come to be?

What happened roughly 850 years ago? (We were told that the year was 843 or thereabouts in Mikasa's flashback.)

Is Eren dead?

Why didn't the wall breaker break through all three walls of Eren's city-state at once? Why only one at a time, sometimes waiting years between attacks?

How did the wall scaler teleport away from Eren, and why?

Given how ill-equipped Eren's people are to fight against the giants -- with even the best cadets getting utterly wrecked by them -- what exactly is the Legion's purpose in leaving the city walls every so often? What are they doing out there that warrants the loss of over half their expedition team each time they try?

Why is the prize for being in the top 10 of your graduating class at the training camp (i.e. being the most likely to excel at slaying giants) an insulated job in the capital where none of the talents you excel in would be put to any use?

Why haven't we heard any proclamations from the king?

Feel free to suggest more. I'm actually surprised by how large the list grew as I wrote it. At the beginning I thought I was only going to list six or seven things.

Apparently the manga is ten volumes long and is ongoing while the anime is slated for 25 episodes. (I had thought it 13. Damn. ^^; Was hoping for closure sooner.) I don't know whether the manga is wrapping up soon and the anime plans to end the same way or whether the manga has no plans of stopping soon and the anime will either a) end in the middle or b) end with a made-for-TV ending. I'm hoping the manga's planning to wrap up soon and the anime will end the same way.

There's apparently a prequel OVA coming out this anime season. And isn't it possible that the anime gets another season if it's as successful as I've been lead to believe it's been so far?

Sure, that's always possible. And that's covered by Letter A. ^_^; Whether a second season comes along or not, ending in the middle is ending in the middle. And I'm saying I don't want that. I'd much rather we knock this thing out of the park in one sitting.

If you want to sincerely speculate along with us as we watch it, then I'd encourage you not to read the manga yet. If you'd prefer to read ahead, by all means go for it, but please be mindful of what you write about here. (We don't really appreciate any leading hints from people who have read ahead. We like figuring things out completely for ourselves.) There are people here who go with both approaches, depending on the series. For Shingeki no Kyojin, I believe no one has read ahead. I believe the lists are currently as follows:

Watching & Haven't Read Ahead:

big bad birtha

Doppleganger

dosuser

kaisap112

lilbluecorsola

Midgeorge

Quicksolver

Talon87

Watching But Have Also Read Ahead:
---

I'm not sure if deoxys is watching or not. The same goes for other visitors of the Anime forum. But I'm pretty sure that of the people I've listed, none of them have read ahead. This isn't always the case though. For example, kaisap112 and Doppleganger have read ahead for Aku no Hana. Doppleganger had also read ahead for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. (Well, "read it back when a new anime adaptation seemed unlikely" is more like it.) So it just depends on the series. For this one, I think you'd be in a pretty lonely camp if you read ahead since, from the look of things, everyone wants to watch this one without any foreknowledge.

So in the recap, they mention the titans were driven by a century of hunger. That kinda makes things more believable, since I was wondering from the start what the titans ate when they couldn't get fresh human. I mean, it was like there were herds of them roaming around as far as the eye could see, and as far as we can tell, the entire surface of the earth is covered in them. So what feeds that many titans? The answer, it would seem, is that they are immortal (or long-lived?) and don't need to eat.

So many new characters introduced right off the bat. Why would they do this, if not because a lot of them are going to be eaten?

FART JOKE

The extremely tall titan appears out of nowhere, as if from a bolt of lightning. Very convenient on the timing, by the way. Also, if it can teleport around like that, why doesn't it just land in the middle of all the walls and save itself the trouble?

Episode 4 was ripped right out of Muv-Luv Unlimited and Muv-Luv Alternative, there's a training session that goes very much like this. Beyond that, it was a rather ho-hum episode until the huge titan from Episode 1 reappeared. I'm still not sure if he's hostile or not, but he did damage the wall when he appeared. I thought it might be teleportation (since he appeared suddenly with a crack of lightning and steam) but Morg pointed out if he could do that, he'd teleport behind the wall (assuming that's his purpose). Perhaps it was fired out of a cannon?